Interesting enough, when the whitehouse.gov changed over the Obama administration’s site (at exactly 12.00 on January 20. Talk about precision!) one of the important proposals for dealing with poverty and welfare was the institution of funding for every mother living in poverty to have a nurse through the Nurse Family Partnership Home Visiting program. If passed, this initiative would mean another 23,000 nurses would need to be pulled into the NFP program. Just a few days earlier the a bill was introduced into the Texas legislature that would eliminate mandatory overtime. The Texas Nurses Association, which supports the bill, believes this would help the nursing shortage by not chasing good nurses from impossible jobs.

The TNA also estimated that the Texas would be short 70,000 nurses by the year 2020.

What do you think the answer is to nurses leaving the profession? A a student I was very discouraged by the attitudes of some floor nurses I encountered in clinical: they were burned out and tired. I also encountered nurses that were hopeful about the profession and loved what they did (some even who were just as tired, it seemed, as the burnt out nurses). I wonder if nurses who were able to stay energized throughout their careers have a secret that other nurses don’t?